Our adoption fee is $250 and includes: spay or neuter, vaccines current, heartworm check, dental cleaning, nail trim, meds for intestinal worms, first month’s heartworm pill, new “martingale” leash and tag collar set with a custom ID tag, a new muzzle and a book on caring for an ex-racing greyhound. Our adoption fee is roughly half the cost of the retail price of the vet services provided for your dog. Because we are a 501c3 nonprofit organization, we get discount pricing from our very competent and caring vets. You can see their websites in our “Links”.

If you’re thinking about fostering or adopting a greyhound, we at God’s Greyts would like to tell you a little bit about how our “Foster to Adopt” program works. We do not “stock” a huge number of greyhounds. We have several dogs in foster care that are usually already spoken for, waiting to be adopted locally or through one of our adoption partners in northern states. Even though their petfinder page may still say “available”, don’t be surprised when you find out a dog on our list has a pending adoption. We try to update our Petfinder site as often as we can, but sometimes we’re just too busy taking care of the dogs!

What we do is talk to each potential foster home/adopter to find out about their family dynamic and what they are looking for in personality and temperament of the dog. Then, we go to the track kennels and “shop” for what you want…. cat friendly, laid back, active, outgoing…whatever you want! We don’t recommend choosing a Greyhound by color. It’s the personality of the dog that is important, not what color it is. By the way, brindle is the most common greyhound color and the white ones shed the most!

Once we take a retired dog from the race kennel, it gets bathed and wormed, then goes into one of our greyhound-savvy foster homes until the next scheduled vet appointment when they will be spayed or neutered, be updated on vaccines if needed, undergo an examination including a heartworm test, dental cleaning, and a nail trim. After surgery, they go back into a Greyhound-experienced foster home to recover for several days to a week, and then we bring them to your home. At that point, we provide a brief educational session to familiarize you with the care procedures for this unique breed. This home visit can take between 90 minutes and 2 hours, as we’ll be showing you how to set up the crate and acquainting your foster dog with your other animals. The time required depends on how much talking YOU want to do. We’ll answer all your questions. We will need a deposit on the crate of $85 in the form of a check, which we do not cash. We simply hold it until you decide whether you are keeping the dog. At that time, you can buy the crate or return it to us and we’ll give you the check back.

Sometimes we will have dogs in foster care that are available and ready to be adopted. We’d be glad to tell you all about them and even arrange for a private visit at their foster home. We provide a crate, bed, dog food, collar with ID tag and a special greyhound “martingale” leash, all free of charge for our foster-to-adopt families to use.

If you decide to adopt, you can purchase the crate for $85, which is less than you’d pay retail. We receive a great “rescue” price from a crate supplier and we pass the savings on to our adopters. Just a note, if there is ever a hurricane and you need to evacuate your family to a shelter, you can only take your dog there if you have a crate for it. They do not provide crates and they don’t allow dogs without them. These crates fold up and store easily in a narrow space in your garage or shed.

If you are serious about adopting but don’t “connect” with the first or second foster, you can keep fostering different dogs until the “right” one comes along.

We provide a personalized ID tag upon the dog being formally adopted, as Greyhounds should NEVER go without ID. They run 40 MPH and if they ever get loose, it’s crucial that they have their ID tag firmly attached. We order the the tags with whatever information YOU want on them. We recommend having your cell phone number(s) on the tag.

Please be aware that Greyhounds can NEVER be let “off leash” unless they are in a completely fenced-in area. Even after you have had them for many years, because they have been trained to chase things all their lives, they cannot be trusted not to take off after something moving. The chance of them running out into traffic and being hit by a car is just too great. They must be kept as indoor pets, as they cannot tolerate extremes in temperature and could easily die of heat stroke. We insist upon these two conditions being met. We require that you agree to these terms when you sign our adoption contract. So, if you are dead set on having a dog that you can let off lead or living outside in your backyard, a greyhound is not the breed for you! In that case, please don’t even call us, as we have already had fatal and heartbreaking circumstances when adopters broke their promise about keeping their greyhound on lead.

In the race kennel, greyhounds are turned out into a large sand pit with many other dogs to do their business and they can take a leisurely 15-30 minutes. They are on a strict daily schedule for this purpose and they have never been asked to do their duty while on on a leash or upon grass. People who do not have fenced yards and will be leash walking, need to understand that this is a new challenge for a greyhound and should have patience. Using a longer lead to give them a bit more privacy can sometimes be helpful. Your home visit representative will have other useful suggestions for you.

Not all greyhounds are fully housebroken when they go to their new homes. Sometimes they have only spent a few days in foster care before they come to you… many times not long enough to get the hang of their new potty environment. Most of our foster homes have fenced in yards and their foster dogs are never leash walked. You need to be mentally prepared for an occasional accident in the first few days, until your dog gets the hang of living in your house with your schedule. Even if your dog was perfectly behaved in their foster home, YOUR home is different and they will need to learn the ropes there, so please be patient with your newbie.

Greyhounds and cats is a topic unto itself! Many greyhounds can live harmoniously with cats and other small creatures. But, while greyhounds may be friendly to cats small dogs and other small animals in the house, OUTSIDE can be an entirely different story. Cat friendly greyhounds who have lived with cats for years have on occasion caught and killed cats, small dogs, rabbits, squirrels and even birds in their own backyards. The thrill of the chase is not only instinctive to the greyhound breed from their origins as desert hunters of Egypt, but these retired racers are trained to chase from a very young age. We do “cat testing” on all of our greyhound fosters. This testing is accurate in MOST cases, but we cannot guarantee it, as some greys do not show their true colors right away and we have been proven wrong on several occasions. So, please do keep this in mind if you have cats or tiny dogs, keep the muzzle on your new greyhound until you are convinced they will not go after the little ones in your house OR in the yard. If you have outdoor cats, we recommend your greyhound wear a muzzle EVERY time it is turned out into your fenced-in yard. Our policy at God’s Greyts is that our cat friendly greyhounds may only go to homes that have cats or other small animals. There are far too many healthy, beautiful and well behaved greyhounds that cannot live with cats waiting to get out of the race kennel and they are being passed over in favor of cat friendly dogs since many of our adopters, foster homes and partnering groups’ foster homes have cats. So, if you do not have cats or small animals, we would love to help you find just the right greyhound for your family.

Toddlers and even older children can pose a serious threat to greyhounds when they leave doors or gates open. If a greyhound gets loose, they can run miles away in a matter of a few minutes. These dogs have no “street sense” as many of them have NEVER been exposed to city streets or even being walked in a neighborhood. They will run right out into heavy traffic. We do not recommend owning a greyhound if you have children under the age of 5 unless you are willing to go to EXTREME measures to insure the safety of your dog with the use of key locking deadbolts, baby gates, pneumatic door closers, gate locks, spring closures and similar precautionary devices. If your kids leave the doors open or ajar on a regular basis, a greyhound is probably not the right breed of dog for you. God’s Greyts will not adopt to families that have toddlers at home and do not have a fenced-in yard. The reasons for that are these: You must leash walk your dog 4-5 times a day and you’ll have to take your toddler(s) with you in EVERY kind of weather at all hours of the day or night. The worst scenario would be that your dog gets loose and then you would be faced with having to abandon either the dog or the child. Greyhounds can NOT be tied out on a rope or a chain. If they saw a squirrel, cat or rabbit, they would chase to the end of their chain and break their neck. Neither can they be contained with an “electronic fence”.

Greyhounds should not be allowed loose in screened pool enclosures or porches, unless the entire yard outside the screened area is fenced all the way around. They can AND WILL run right through the screen and be lost before you even notice they are missing. Greyhounds are not great swimmers. If they fall into a pool and no one is there to rescue them, they could easily drown.

We have a brief Greyhound Care Handbook available for anyone interested in learning more about this unique breed. You can obtain it from our Documents page, or we can send it via email or snail mail. Simply email us at godsgreyts@mac.com or call and request the Greyhound Care Handbook.